


Turned Out

by fringeperson



Category: Neko no Ongaeshi | The Cat Returns
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote this and I know better now, Old Fic, but I'm not going to deny its existance just because it's old and bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27446530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson
Summary: Baron, for reasons he isn't so crazy about, is no longer living at the Cat Bureau, so he has to find somewhere else to live.~Originally posted in '08.
Relationships: Baron Humbert von Gikkingen/Yoshioka Haru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

The only difference between a gentleman and a tramp is the quality of their clothes. Some wretched fool said that once. Why was he wretched? Because he was right.

Baron threw his cane at the cobbles in the alley, disgusted. Disgusted with the world, with the fool who got it so damned right, but mostly disgusted with himself. He was the perfect gentleman: brewed tea, wore a fine suit, had impeccable manners, made polite conversation easily and was always happy to help anyone who needed it.

That last one had been his downfall.

There was a time when helping people made him feel more alive, once he had even felt his heart beat, something that had never happened before, just because he was helping someone… helping _her_. Helping her to realise who she was.

Now, helping someone else had landed him out on his tail, and Baron was, for once, the person in need of help. Muta had stayed at what was once the Cat Bureau, making sure it didn't get too dented by its new residence, and Toto was off looking for somewhere new that he and Baron might be able to stay. Of course, Toto just had to find a cornice somewhere and he'd be fine. It was a bit harder for Baron, who lasted better indoors.

"I suppose I could try a shop window again," he said to himself. It was not an appealing idea though, and with a sigh he jumped down from the crate he was sitting on and picked up his cane again. "I'm probably not window standard any more, just get shoved in the back to gather dust."

At least it wasn't bent; it had been a gift from … her. Oh, it had been time and past to get a new cane since she had given him this one, all the use it had had, but he couldn't bear to part with it all the same, even when Muta and Toto had gotten him a new one. Oh yes, he took that one with him when he went places, it was for using, and this one… stayed behind, safe, where no one else would touch it.

When _they_ had come though, no where in the Bureau was safe any more, and he had left, wanting to find somewhere quiet again, taking this cane. Hook had finally driven the Lost Boys out of the Neverland, and they were living in his little house while Muta tried to find them families. Half of them didn't fit! He couldn't stay there.

Couldn't stay where he was either. A back alley shouldn't be home for any one.

"Baron! Baron I found a place where you can stay!" Toto yelled excitedly into the dark alley, swooping down from the starry sky, a more solid shadow than the rest. "Jump on, it's a bit of a way," the crow said, landing between the crate and the toppled-over garbage bin.

The orange cat-gentleman gripped his cane, held his top hat firmly between his ears, and leapt lightly on to the back of the crow.

High in the air, over the cities and towns, Baron had time to think. He didn't want time to think. His mind kept coming back to why he had done such an irrational thing as throw his cane. The next thing, he found himself asking why he kept it, a question he promptly turned away from, only to be confronted once again by the first.

 _She'd be about twenty by now._ He shook his head furiously – where had that come from? What did it matter anyway? Baron distracted himself by observing that Toto had begun his descent. The cat figurine nearly groaned.

It was a museum. Of all the places it could have been, why did it have to be a museum? Please don't misunderstand – Baron was a great appreciator of art and education and such things as are found in museums, but he would be catalogued and dusted in a museum. If he was lucky, he _might_ be put in a glass case where people would be able to see him, though they would be far more likely to just pass him by.

"No where better available, I take it?" he asked when his friend landed on between the eaves at the back.

The over-sized black bird shook his head.

"I was going more on emergency housing, rather than idyllic," Toto said, his tone both apologetic and reproving. It was a roof over his head, which was the most important thing.

"You're right of course Toto, my apologies," murmured the Baron, jumping down from the feathered back. A glimmer of light, and the figurine didn't have to turn to know that his friend had turned into stone again for the day. "Sleep well, old friend," he said, climbing down the side of the building.

Rather than going down to the basement and admitting to being an antique of the dusty kind, Baron spent an uncomfortable night in the lost-and-found box.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiff, and aching all over, Baron was rudely awoken by a hand rifling through the box that had kept him uncomfortable but dry all night.

"Your wallet in there, Miss?" asked a gruff voice from above.

"If it is, I can't find it," answered a young woman, a sigh following her words. "Would you mind if I tipped it out and looked through that way?" she asked.

"Go right ahead, Miss. Call me when you find it, and I'll pack everything back up."

Baron felt the box tipping, and himself falling. He held tight to his hat and cane, not wanting to lose them among the already lost property of others. A cat, he landed on his feet, but with all the other falling debris, he was soon on his side.

"Ah, my wallet – huh?"

Baron felt the hand wrap around his body and turned himself to wood. The young woman who held him looked about twenty, perhaps a little older, and she had blonde hair.

"You look familiar, but I'm sure I've never seen you before… Of course! Haru's painting! I wonder if she knows she's lost you," the girl asked the doll, absently talking to it – a habit developed over years of having stuffed toys. "Well, I'm going by her house later, I'll drop you off while I'm there," she said, smiling.

It took all his self-control and will power to not drop his jaw at what this young lady was saying. She was going to take him to Haru. The ecstasy lasted only a short time. Being put in the lady's handbag, along with her now-found wallet, brought about the abrupt end of that joyous feeling. Every sound was muffled inside the handbag, except the sounds of the lipstick case hitting the fold-up mirror and mobile phone.

Every time the handbag stopped, was dropped with a painful jolt, opened to allow fresh air and light, Baron hoped that it would be the last time, and that he would see Haru. She would – she would what? Maybe give him a nice, airy shelf with a pretty view beside a vase of lilies.

Suddenly, seeing Haru again after so long wasn't so appealing. She would have moved on with her life; had very likely forgotten all about him by now. Probably even had a boyfriend, or a husband or something.

Baron curled up and stroked his cane, unable to see anything in the absolute blackness of the handbag, even with his cat eyes. If he wanted to work even a pale shadow of his light show, he needed a speck of light to start with. He didn't have one now.

The phone started bleeping, lighting up the bag. Looking up in surprise, Baron was shocked to read on the little screen these three words: _Message from Haru._ Natural light flooded the bag; it had been opened. The young woman who owned it reached in for the phone, and laughed as she fiddled with it.

"I'm one block away, chill out," she said quietly, her thumbs moving over the buttons of the mobile. With a smile, she dropped the gadget back into the handbag and closed it once more.

Baron sighed. He was soon to be reunited with Haru, and he found that as much as he wanted to see her again, he also dreaded all that might have changed between them. They had not, after all, seen each other for five, no, six years.

There was nothing for it though, and Baron returned once again to his wooden state, he could only wait for the handbag to open. Worrying never did anyone any good.

"Believe in who you are," he whispered to himself, forcing himself to remember every detail of Haru, and the Cat Kingdom, and everything that had happened – even the way his heart had beat. It hadn't happened before or since then.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey Haru!"

"Hiromi! It's about time you got here!" Haru answered, throwing her arms around her best friend. There was a slightly scared look on the young woman's face.

"Haru, what's wrong? I haven't seen you scared of anything for ages," Hiromi said, following the taller girl into the kitchen and putting down her handbag. An unusually heavy _thunk_ reminded her that she had a surprise.

"Oh, wait, before you tell me, I found something I think is yours," said the blonde, opening the bag and pulling out the cat doll.

Haru stared for a moment.

"Where did you find him?" she asked, transfixed, any and all reasons to be afraid of anything suddenly gone.

"Lost and found at the museum, I was looking for my wallet and I recognised him from your painting. Thought you might like to have him back," she said, pushing the wooden figurine across the table. "Now, why did you look so scared? Was it just that you'd lost this guy, or something else?"

"It's Machida," Haru said, that frightened look of a moment ago returning, though to a lesser degree. The brunette pulled Baron close and held him tight, feeling calmer with him close again, after all those years. "He asked me to marry him."

"No way! What did you say? You said no right? He's so not good enough for you, I've been telling you for years that you should end it with him," Hiromi said, forgetting that it had been her, years ago in high school, that had suggested Haru try flirting with Machida.

"I did say no, I even told him it was over. I've been meaning to tell him for months, I just could never find the right way or time, and I then said it all at once. The look on his face though, it was dangerous Hiromi," Haru said, squeezing Baron tighter to her chest.

He had been her hero; he'd taught her to dance without breaking feet, he'd saved her from becoming a cat, he'd helped her to believe in herself and who that was. She was so unbelievably glad to have him with her now.

"Take out a restraining order, get a new boyfriend – a _nice_ guy," Hiromi said, eagerly explaining to her friend what should be done, leaning across the table, on the verge of wrapping her arms around her normally bold friend who had become as timid as when she was in school.

"Machida _was_ a nice guy, remember? High school, you set me up with him, even when I told you that I couldn't care less about him any more," Haru pointed out, brown eyes large and eyebrows raised.

"It was _high school_ , people were in and out of relationships like anything, I didn't expect him to hang around this long, or you to let him," Hiromi countered, making her defence.

"I suppose it doesn't matter any more," Haru said, holding up Baron so that she could look at him again. He was carrying the cane she had given him! Haru fought a delighted giggle, Hiromi would have been suspicious, but there was nothing wrong with smiling.

"You're really happy to have him back, huh?" Hiromi asked, letting the previous subject drop as she pointed to the dapper cat.

"He makes me feel safe," Haru said dreamily. Her own words woke her up a little. "That sounded weird, didn't it?" she asked.

"More than a little," Hiromi informed her dryly. "If you were still seven, it would be fine, but not at twenty-one. But hey," she added, shrugging. "With Machida on one side, and this guy on the other…" the blonde let any suggestions hang in the air unsaid. "Marry the doll, he's guaranteed to not beat you up, ever," she said at last. "I gotta go, see you Haru!" Hiromi showed herself out, quickly, before Haru hit her with a pillow.


	4. Chapter 4

"Marry the doll, she says," Haru said, putting Baron down on the table and her chin down in front of him. "If she only knew what I went through to _not_ marry a cat," she sighed under the pressure of slightly uncomfortable thoughts. "I was too young to get married then anyway."

"Much too young," agreed the Baron politely.

"Hello Baron," said Haru, a smile on her face. "It's been a long time."

"Much too long," answered the orange gentleman cat, taking a seat on the table. There was a smile on his face also, and his bright green eyes glistened with the memory of the last time they had seen each other.

"That –" began Haru, nodding towards it, her head was still on the table "– is a very fine cane. Wherever did you get it from?"

Baron's smile turned into a grin as he ran his hands over the wooden instrument that had served him so well.

"It was a gift, from the loveliest young woman I ever had the pleasure to meet… I've missed you," he confessed, not looking up from her gift of so many years ago.

Haru's head came up, surprised. Sitting up properly at the table once more, she couldn't help but smile. It was wonderful to hear him say that, all of it.

"I missed you too," she said, blushing a little. "Uh, Baron? What were you doing in a lost-and-found at the museum?"

"For reasons I shall not burden you with, I have had to vacate the Cat Bureau. It has new occupants, and there wasn't any room left between them for me. Toto gave me a lift to a safe place for things, and that was the museum," he explained, resting his furred jowl on a gloved hand, the elbow on his knee.

"I didn't like the idea of the basement, and becoming part of the collection, so I settled down for some sleep in the lost-and-found box. What puzzles me is how someone who has never seen me before recognised me and brought me here based on that recognition," there was a question in there, and they both knew it.

Haru smiled a nervous "oh no" sort of smile and offered her hand to the Baron, the silent suggestion that she would carry him.

Baron ignored the hand and jumped up to ride on Haru's shoulder as he had when she was walking down the stair of crows provided by Toto.

Haru sighed, a cross between "I should have known" and contentment, and rubbed her cheek very gently against her passenger.

"I have _really_ missed you, Baron," she said softly, getting up from the table and heading upstairs.

Balancing easily on her shoulder regardless of motion, Baron closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of Haru's hair, almost burrowing his face in it, enjoying the silky feeling of her tresses.

"This is how Hiromi recognised you," Haru said, coming to a halt. Even her voice seemed to blush.

Her words jerked him out of the deliciousness of the feel and smell of her hair, and he opened his eyes to see a painting. It was not, perhaps, the sort of thing galleries and museums would fight over at auctions, but it was the sort of thing, regardless, that a private person might buy because they liked it – it was simple and of rather ordinary quality, but lovely all the same.

"I'm no Da Vinci, or Rembrandt or Michelangelo or any of them, but I passed my art class with it," Haru said.

Baron peered at Haru as well he could from her shoulder, and saw that she was blushing. He wrapped his arms around her neck in a comforting hug.

"It's just fine, and you don't have to be those people – they're long-dead men for one thing, you're much better as you," he assured her, turning once more to look at the painting of them, dancing, in a room draped with grey silks.


	5. Chapter 5

"My teacher particularly liked the emotion and ambience of the work," Haru said, as though reading from the assessor's comments, wooden in tone and cardboard in strength.

"May I get a closer look?" he asked.

Haru shifted the painting so that it was on the floor, then knelt down right in front of it, so that the Baron could inspect it.

Haru had painted herself as a cat, but had denied the onlooker the sight of her lovely brown eyes, painting them closed, her mouth opened slightly.

Baron hopped down from Haru's lap to get an even closer look at the work, examining the emotion that he thought he saw there. He heard her stand up and shuffle off a little way, but his attention was still fixed on Haru's painting.

He swallowed a few times, when he finally realised exactly what was going on. She had been too young then, but he had still wanted to kiss her, and here, in the privacy of a silk-shrouded room, Haru had painted the two of them mere breaths away from performing that act.

He stepped back, away from the painting; his emerald eyes still fixed upon it.

"Bother," he heard from behind him. Haru had said it, just softly.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked, turning. He swallowed his words the instant he saw Haru's difficulty. There was no taking them back, however.

"No, thank you, it's alright, there!" Haru said, getting the button unstuck from her hair. "I have the misfortune of having to go to a fancy dinner tonight, so I have to shower and change. I wouldn't mind, but Machida will be there too." Haru explained as she folded up the shirt that she had been wearing and putting it in a drawer. The dress that she would be wearing to the dinner was already draped along her bed.

Baron hadn't noticed that she had brought him to her bedroom. His focus had been on the painting.

He tried to swallow again, but his mouth was paper dry. He felt his heart beating again, as it had when they had been together in the Cat Kingdom.

"I think I need a drink of water," he managed to rasp out, a finger wiggling about between neck and tie.

"Of course, just a sec," Haru said, grabbing a thimble from her sewing kit – a gift from her mother, it hardly ever got used – and leaving the room. That a bra was the only covering on her torso didn't seem to bother Haru nearly as much as it bothered the Baron.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything nicer," she said when she returned with thimble of cold water. "At least, that you would be able to pick up. I should be in the shower about ten minutes, if you want it after," Haru added absently, the words just coming.

Baron blinked up at her. Haru blinked back, and then she seemed to register what she had said.

"Sorry, I'm used to sharing with my mother. She died of a brain aneurism early February," she added by way of explaining why her mother wasn't in the house now.

"I'm sorry Haru," Baron said, focusing on her words and face rather than the cleavage that was almost staring at him. He was an old-fashioned gentleman, and while the times appeared to have changed, his sensitivities hadn't.

Haru shook her head. "Nothing you could have done, she was born with it the doctor said. I'd better have that shower."

Haru was only ten minutes, and returned to her room wrapped up in a fluffy white towel, her jeans and underwear draped over one arm.

"Oh, that feels good," she said, eyes closed, rolling her head around her shoulders, wet hair clinging to her neck.


	6. Chapter 6

Baron felt his heart beating. It was in his chest, in his ears, in his tails and whiskers, and he felt hot all over. He supposed that he should have known better than to just turn around when Haru walked into the room, straight from her shower.

"Maybe I will have that shower," he said, not knowing how to take control of these feelings.

Haru froze. She had forgotten that Baron was in her room – water washed everything away, worries, obligations, and memories of guests that she didn't normally have. She turned red.

"Turn left, second door on the right," she said. "Spare towels in the cupboard that's in there."

"Thank you," returned the Baron, heading quickly for the door. Something strange was happening though, and not just the strange way he felt. With every step he took, the world got a little smaller, until it was the right size for him. Then the feel of cool air along his tail disappeared, and he couldn't feel his whiskers any more.

"Oh, the door," Haru said, remembering that she had shut it behind her. She turned to open it for Baron, but found that she didn't need to.

He stood there a moment, one hand on the handle, pushed it open, and headed down the hall.

Haru knew that it was him because no one else had been in her room, and no one dressed like the Baron, but he was as tall as, maybe even a little taller now, than her. His cat ears and tail were gone; his fur had been replaced by hair. Haru dried and dressed quickly, unsure what had happened, but not wanting to be caught in the intermediate stage of dressing when Baron came back from having his shower.

When Baron returned, fully dressed but a little damp around the collar and hair, Haru was sitting at her dressing table in a powder-blue dress, brushing her hair. She turned in her seat when she heard him walking through the door.

"Oh my," she said, putting the brush down and standing up. "Baron? Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost," Haru asked, taking tentative steps closer to her hero.

"I looked in the mirror," he answered. "Did it lie to me? Or have I really turned into a man?"

"It didn't lie," answered Haru, sliding her hands up around his face, checking that it really was skin, and not fur. "You remember, that first time we said goodbye, I told you…" Haru stopped, her mouth now dry.

"Marry the doll," Baron said, a slight plea in his voice as he ran his fingers, bare fingers rather than gloved, through Haru's short, brown, and still slightly damp hair.

"I don't think I could find a nicer guy," she answered, tears in her eyes, a smile on her face. "Oh Baron!" Haru wrapped her arms around his neck, desperate to hold him again.  
His arms went around her waist, and he held her as tightly as she held him.


End file.
